Often, you might have heard professional blog writing companies say that the active voice is the hero of the English language. They believe that passive voice tends to be the reason for a drop in readability.
Hence, it is best to stick to active voice when writing SEO-optimized content.
The basics of a sentence in active voice
Strictly speaking, when writers write articles, they prefer to use an active voice in sentences as much as possible.
Here is a simple formula of active voice vs passive voice
Writers do it because the readers can easily understand the action and the subject in the sentence.
The only place where writers prefer using passive voice is when they have no idea about the subject who performed the action. Alternatively, they might use it when it is not important to know the subject who performed the action.
So to summarize,
— Sentences in active voice focus on subject
— Sentences in passive voice focus on object and action
How professional writers use the active voice?
Expert writers recommend active voice in sentences where the subject performs the action. Whereas in passive voice, the action is received by the subject.
Let’s take an example:
— An active voice would be “The dog chased the squirrel.”
— The passive voice would be “The squirrel was chased by the dog.”
See the difference between active and passive voice?
Sentences using active voice have a very clear tone. The words are not misinterpreted, and they convey the fact.
The sentence in active voice has three main traits:
- a subject,
- an object, and
- a verb.
In the above example sentence,
- the dog is the subject
- the squirrel is the object
- the action (chasing) is the verb
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Advantages of writing the content in active voice
Active voice is used to keep the sentences shorter and to the point. The shorter the sentences, the easier it will be for the readers to understand. You will only use precise words to explain what the subject is doing with the object.
There are other advantages of using active voice: –
1 – Sentences become simpler
The sentences are easy to interpret. In passive voice, the sentences become more complex and confusing. This is especially impactful if you have to convince a B2B reader online about your industry authority or for building trust with engrossing content.
2 – Active voice mimics a spoken conversation
When having a conversation, you do not use passive voice. The same is the case with conversational content. You write exactly the way you speak.
As professional blog writers, writing the same way as you speak, is an effective way to enhance readability
This makes the blog more conversational and shows a direct approach.
3 – Professional bloggers can create an emotional connection
In certain scenarios, the active voice can help create an emotional bond with the subject.
Let’s take an example, “Entrepreneurs love challenges and devising solutions for them.”
In this sentence, you can feel a direct connection with the entrepreneurs. Whereas in passive voice, the sentence will be “Challenges are loved by entrepreneurs.” This does not provide an emotional element to it.
4 – Active voice focuses on the subject
When you use an active voice in sentences, you give more importance to the subject than the action.
Active voice creates curiosity and brings all the attention to the subject and the action performed by the subject. And this makes a blog a riveting content when readers read it.
How do professional blog writing companies use active voice?
But our target audience is B2B and B2C readers online. Their psychology is different from novel readers. They have a short attention span. Hence, digital marketing writers need to convey marketing messages in a subtle yet direct way.
You can achieve effective outcomes from the storytelling objective if you use an active voice in your articles.
If you’re writing a blog or website content, then the best approach to writing is to write the entire narrative in an active voice.
This style puts the reader right in the middle of the conversation. As a result, the writer makes the entire story behind the content more interesting.
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Should (Can) professional blog writing companies avoid passive voice altogether?
For newbie writers, it might sound very strange to hear that frequently experienced writers often have debates about which among the two is the better choice for writing.
SEO content writers believe that they should complete their sentences using an active voice whenever they get a chance. This helps the writer create unique, precise, and ‘to the point’ content.
Using passive voice will increase the number of words and often confuse readers as to what the writer is trying to convey. However, it does not imply that you should avoid using passive voice in sentences altogether as a writer.
Even the popular Yoast SEO tool allows for some passive voice sentences. Its readability check allows for 10% or less of the sentences in passive and still classify it as good quality content.
A passive voice comes as a great tool for fiction writing, because the authors can hide some facts about a character in plain sight. It helps the writer to add hidden secrets that the readers would be excited to discover only at the ending.
The use of passive voice sentences in novel and fiction genres has been helpful for the authors. This is because there is no need to address the subject properly. They can play with the subject. This gives them the flexibility to write about the subject as a ‘big reveal’ at the climax.
How to rewrite passive voice sentences in active voice?
If you’re rewriting a sentence in passive voice, you can start by looking for a “by” sentence. When you find the subject closer to the “by,” bring that subject to the beginning of the sentence to convert it into an active voice.
For example, check this sentence in a passive voice, “The tech product was developed by a team of MBA graduates”.
Blog writers convert it into active by writing it as “The MBA graduates developed the product.”
As professional blog writers, this is a simple thumb rule to follow
You can then start writing the sentence in active voice by keeping in mind the subject, the object, and the verb.
It takes a lot of practice and reading to master this talent. It is not an easy job to properly understand the difference. Hence it is best to leave this task to professional blog writing companies.
Wrapping up
This was all about using active voice to spruce up the efficacy of your blog. It might be challenging but active voice’s impact on SEO content remains unmatched. Get on-board our writers at Textuar and leverage our competencies to get high quality blogs written for your SEO goals.
